


Matt Gives a Clue (1/1) Rated PG

by Bumpkin



Series: Matt [3]
Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumpkin/pseuds/Bumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt lets Terry know that he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matt Gives a Clue (1/1) Rated PG

Disclaimer: I’ve said it before…

Description: Matt lets Terry know that he knows.

Matt Gives a Clue: Terry’s Due  
By Marns AKA Bumpkin  
Rated: PG

It was late on Friday afternoon and Matt McGinnis was sitting in his room waiting for a specific phone call. It had been just under three weeks since Matt had first began to suspect what his brother did at night, and a little over two since Matt had confirmed his suspicions. It was the weekend of the McGinnis brothers’ monthly bonding ritual.

In the past, Matt normally tried to cut down the time he spent with Terry during these ‘brotherly bonding’ sessions – arranging to meet for the day and then begging off come evening. This time however, he had another agenda entirely. This time he was going to surprise his brother. He was planning on accepting Terry’s standard invitation to sleep over at his apartment for the weekend. There were a few things that the two of them really needed to discuss, Matt mused darkly.

Right at five the phone rang. ‘Like clockwork Ter,’ Matt thought with amusement as he reached over and flipped on the personal vid-screen in his room. “Hey Ter,” he greeted his brother’s smiling face. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good, how about with you?” Matt made a non-committal noise in answer and Terry grinned even wider. “That good eh? So, you wanna come over tomorrow? Feel up to hanging out with your older bro this weekend?”

That was Matt’s cue, “Yeah actually, sure – I think that I could really go for that this weekend.”

Terry’s gaze had been wandering a bit until he heard his brother’s answer, then it snapped to Matt’s face and sharpened. Matt had to fight a very strong urge to squirm, ‘Damn! How come I never saw how _intently_ Terry can look at someone before?’ The answer came to him when Terry’s attention was pulled to somewhere off screen. ‘Probably because it’s never been directed right at you before, twip.’ Matt was really beginning to worry about his mental health; he was starting to have way too many conversations with himself lately.

Terry looked back to Matt as he said, “Okay then, listen, I gotta get going right now but we are definitely on. So what time do you want to meet tomorrow and where?”

Matt thought for a moment – now that he knew for sure that he was spending the weekend with Terry, he had some errands to run before he met his brother. “Cheesy Dan’s at four? That way we can grab something for dinner on our way back to your place.”

“Sounds good to me, see ya then,” and without any fanfare, Terry hung up. Matt followed his brother’s lead a little slower, thinking that if anything this was going to be an interesting weekend, to say the least.

~*~

Matt was laughing so hard he was snorting. “Oh my god Terry, I can’t believe you did that!”

Terry looked over at his hysterical younger brother and affected a snooty air, holding the pizza box he was carrying like some kind of silver tray as he said, “But my dear boy, what you don’t understand is that you can’t judge the value of a book from its cover – you have to ‘delve’ deeply into its pages – ”

“Stop! I’m dying here!” Matt cut his brother off gasping for breath.

Terry flashed his struggling brother a grin. “C’mon Matt, the guy was a pretentious SOB who obviously isn’t native to these parts or he would have recognized me even with my being dressed like this.” He indicated his casual t-shirt and jeans, with the perpetual backpack slung over his one shoulder. “As the personal assistant to the one and only Bruce Wayne, I certainly have been on the vids enough. He deserved what he got, from me and the maitre de.”

“I’m not arguing about that, I just can’t believe that you did it. The guy was more than twice your age and you tore a strip off him a mile wide. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything like that.” Matt confessed.

“After working for Bruce Wayne for all this time, there is very little that I can’t or won’t do.” Terry said grinning and Matt thought, ‘Yeah, I bet!’ All he did was “hmm” a bit though. It was still too early to get into that, and besides – he was having fun with his brother, now that he had given him a chance.

Watching Terry put the pompous jerk at the restaurant in his place had been an eye opener to the man his brother had grown into, especially after the afternoon they had spent challenging each other on all the games at Cheesy Dan’s. Matt was wondering how he had missed what a complex person his brother was for all this time. He’d let old misconceptions from the past colour his opinions for too long. He’d always dismissed Terry in a number of ways – as a former juvenile delinquent who went through life in one big brawl, as an old man’s errand boy turned into a stuffed shirt office worker.

Or Matt realized with the glimmer of understanding, as the older brother that had abandoned him – several times over. He had resented Terry for a long time. Blamed him for a lot of things that weren’t entirely his fault, or at least – were things that he shouldn’t have been held for judgment on. Matt now realized that he’d been hurt and resentful when Terry had first started to work for Mr. Wayne, because it always seemed that the job was more important than the family Terry was part of. Then when it was a perfectly natural time for Terry to move out, Matt again had been upset and angry – Terry was finding yet another way to abandon them. Matt guessed that he had probably felt so strongly about those two things because of the time Terry had spent in juvvie, and then with their father after the divorce. He had been too young at that time to really understand anything except that his worshipped older brother was leaving him behind.

“Hey,” Terry’s concerned voice broke into his thoughts, “you okay bro? You zoned out on me all of a sudden there. Something bothering you?”

Matt gave himself a shake, like a dog would after getting wet, and replied, “Nah, just got some stuff on my mind. It’s that growing up thing that us teenagers do – makes us moody buggers at times.”

Terry laughed. “Okay, just wanted to make sure. Anyway, we’re he-re. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving!” He waved the steaming pizza box under Matt’s nose and said, “What do you say that we go up and make this disappear like magic?”

Matt’s stomach growled from the tantalizing aromas still wafting around his head. “You are right on my wavelength, let’s go!” He started to run past his brother and impishly added, “Race ya!”

Terry just shook his head and kept walking sedately to the elevators – Matt wasn’t going to get very far, they were passkey encoded.

~*~

“Ugh, I’m full. I don’t think that I could eat another bite if you paid me!” Matt complained as he pushed his chair back from Terry’s dining room table and leaned back.

Terry chuckled, “That’s what you get for acting like such a glutton. That last piece wasn’t going anywhere y’know, it could have waited.” Matt did the only thing acceptable by a teen when being lectured in such a way by an elder – he stuck out his tongue.

Matt complained good-naturedly. “God Terry, there’s no need to age yourself before your time. Remember – you’re only twenty-three.” Terry blew him a raspberry. Matt grinned, that was more like it!

Trying not to dwell on how overfull his stomach felt, Matt let his eyes wander curiously around Terry’s apartment. He had only been here a couple of times and hadn’t stayed very long either time. He had noticed that when they came in Terry had deliberately hit a switch or something very subtly – looking around now, Matt wondered what his brother had disabled. There was nothing that looked out of the ordinary – well, if you considered swanky ordinary that is. Matt was pretty impressed with his surroundings now that he’d actually looked at them. ‘Kinda the same way you felt when you finally looked at Terry’ he thought to himself wryly.

His wandering gaze ultimately met up with his brother’s steady blue eyes. Matt felt a little uncomfortable to have been caught so obviously sizing the place up, but then Terry smiled, “Nice digs eh?” Matt nodded; he’d been just thinking that after all. Terry leaned forward over the table and motioned for Matt to do the same. He obliged, curious.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, this building – it belongs to Wayne.” Terry stage whispered and then he sat back and grinned.

Matt’s mouth fell open. “No way! So, you at least have to pay rent right?” the younger boy asked.

“Nope. I oversee the business end of the management here and get to live here rent free as a perk.” Terry said smugly.

“Jeez. No wonder you moved out if you get to live here for free –.” Then Matt thought of something, “but you know that you’re kinda a stuffed shirt superintendent now, right?” Matt laughingly ducked as Terry pitched a wadded up napkin at him.

“Shut up you!” was all Terry said though. “Anyway, what did you want to do tonight? There anything I can help you with?” He asked casually enough, but that intent look was back and trained on Matt.

‘Damn! I wish he’d stop doing that,’ Matt thought as nerves started to make him regret having eaten as much as he had. He began to wonder again how Terry was going to react to being told that his younger brother had figured out his secret. Would he be mad? Glad? Would he hate that Matt knew? Would he be a combination of all of the above and more – or none? There were so many variables and Matt didn’t know Terry well enough to make any guesses anymore.

“Cred for your thoughts?” Terry asked. Matt’s attention was drawn back to his brother as the older man said, “You keep going a million miles away on me Matt – there’s something bothering you. Tell me about it?”

He got up and motioned for Matt to come and sit with him in the living room. Matt followed and sat down on the couch, tucking one leg up under the other, trying to figure out how to begin.

Only one thing to do – start talking. Rather than bring up the kidnapping story right away, he’d lead into it, “This week at school we were doing a block on endangered and extinct species and one of the things they said was doing the most damage, were poachers. Well, this one kid who isn’t the brightest had to ask what a poacher was – the explanation he got kinda threw me. The teacher said that a poacher was a hunter that pursued his or her prey unlawfully and unethically. It made me think of that guy that kidnapped me when I was eight.” There, that was a nice and easy lead in – sorta.

Terry was looking a bit pained, and Matt suddenly remembered something the freaky guy had said after telling him not to be so dramatic. He had said that Matt was ‘merely bait’, and since he had been hunting Batman – he must have somehow known who Batman was under the suit to have snatched Matt as bait. So many things were becoming clearer now.

Matt pressed on, “I guess that hearing it explained like that helped me to remember some stuff that I never did before. ‘Cause now I can remember asking the guy what he was going to do to me –” he paused frowning for a second but then shook his head. “I can’t remember what stupid things I thought he was going to do – all I can remember now is him telling me not to be so ‘dramatic’ and that I was ‘merely bait’.” Terry was faintly smiling again. Matt had a deft gift for mimicry and even after all this time was able to imitate Stalker very well.

“Anyway, after that I asked him what happened to his back and he told me this story about a hunting accident and how they had to replace his spine in this really painful operation, but how it artificially increased his reflexes and strength. This of course made regular hunting too easy for him – even if he did it with his bare hands – and since he lived for the ‘thrill of the hunt’ it was a ‘tragedy’. Then he went on to say some mumbo jumbo about a ‘bat-spirit’ and the ‘ultimate challenge’ and then Batman showed up. You know the rest, of course – you’ve heard it enough times.” Matt grinned as he said the last.

Terry smiled with his brother but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I can see how the teacher’s explanation would have triggered you to remember a lot of that, and I can see how it would bother you...” Matt cut him off,

“Can we finish the story? Do the fun part? I know that you’ve heard it a zillion times but stopping there just seems wrong.”

Terry smiled for real, “Sure twip, you start.”

“You shoulda been there Mom, it was awesome!” Matt said, pretending like he was eight again. Terry grinned and said their mother’s line in a funny falsetto,

“Matt, I was so worried!” he rolled his eyes as Matt giggled.

“There was this big guy with a spear and tattoos all over his body and he put me in this cage.”

“What? Why?” they both said Mom’s line this time and laughed together afterwards.

“I dunno, but then Batman showed up and Bam! Wham! Pow!” Matt said as he swung his fists in exaggerated motions to match the sound effects. “– He saved me.” Matt scooted a little closer to Terry on the couch to finish up just like he had that first time, “Batman’s soo cool – not a loser like you.”

Terry grinned remembering too as he said his line, “Hey, we can’t all be Batman,” and then he reached out to tousle Matt’s hair like he had done that first night as well. His hand was arrested in mid-air though as Matt said softly,

“But _you_ are…”

Terry’s eyes were wide and shocked. He stuttered, “How – I mean – What ma – ”

“Chill Terry, don’t have a spazz attack – I’ll explain…” Matt said as he got up from the couch to get his backpack, he pulled out a vid-disc and handed it to Terry. Then after his brother had put the disc in the player, Matt handed Terry his own binoculars back. Terry looked at them and then at Matt.

“I’d wondered where these had gone,” was all he said as he turned to face the screen, handing Matt the remote. Matt didn’t turn the vid on right away; he turned to his brother instead and began to explain from the start.

“Okay, it’s like this… About three weeks ago I saw you and Commissioner Gordon talking together and it looked like the two of you knew each other really well, which got me wondering how the two of you got to be so friendly with each other. After all, as far as I knew – you were just a businessman, y’know? But when I saw you talking to her about her case _and_ looking like you knew what you were talking about – well, it made me think back to the week before that – y’know, when we were out together, and you got into that fight at the arcade. I’d thought at the time that it was really cool you knew to let them throw the first punches – so that you could claim self defense – but then you told them you were gonna call the cops and charge _them_ with assault. It was very law-savvy, and again not something that you would expect from your average businessman.”

Terry was nodding. “I see, but I could also just be interested in law as a hobby and have cultivated a friendship with Barbara because of it.” Matt smiled as he noted his brother using the Commissioner’s first name so easily.

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t explain how you can move – in a fight or when you creep up on someone and scare the living daylights out of them like you used to do to mom and me at home all the time.” When Terry began to dismiss his fighting as something that he’d always done Matt added one more thing, “ _Or_ that you messed up and talked to those dregs that day in the arcade in your Batman voice.”

Terry’s mouth snapped shut, and his eyes blinked. “What?”

Matt pressed play on the remote for the first time – “Get lost dregs like I already suggested, or I think that I just might have to call the cops and charge you with assault.” Then right after was a newsbyte from the week before of Batman talking to some Jokerz who were causing some trouble at a toy store’s grand opening, “Go home clowns, can’t you tell they don’t want you here?” Matt pressed stop.

Terry’s eyes were narrow as they looked at his younger brother. “Been busy, have you?” It was the Batman voice and Matt quailed inside. ‘It _was_ a very effective intimidation tactic’ he admitted to himself, but he kept going anyway,

“Thought that you should know. If I picked up on it, someone else could too – right? Anyway, that wasn’t all – there was more. This is more personal stuff though, due solely to my being your brother.” Matt saw that the last admission hadn’t softened his brother’s expression any and suppressed a wince.

“Anyway, back when you were still living at home there were a couple of things that should have been tip offs – if someone was observant enough. One was your tendency to talk to the news. Muttering under your breath for the most part, but there were times when you would get louder. That isn’t so unusual, what caught my attention was what you got upset at. It all was stuff that you couldn’t possibly know about, not even as Wayne’s assistant. It was almost like you had been there, but I knew that couldn’t be – except you had been, as Batman.” Another quick look at Terry made Matt begin to wonder if his brother’s face had solidified in that expression of cold anger.

“Then the others were all the bruises and injuries you kept getting even though you tried to hide them. You’re not a clumsy guy, and there was no explanation for why you were always hurt.” Thankfully Terry wasn’t looking as angry anymore, which Matt took to be a good sign. He just might survive this.

“Then there was this,” he pressed play again and a certain old preview for Inside Peek – the one where Ian Peek was going to expose Batman – began to play. He stopped it again when it had run through. Pointedly not looking at Terry he said, “You remember telling me and Mom right before that show was supposed to go on that you were Batman? And we laughed? Guess you got the last laugh on us that night since you were telling the truth after all.”

“Matt…” Terry’s voice was soft, and thankfully back to its normal tone.

“And here is where you are probably going to hate me for life.” Matt’s eyes flicked up to meet his brother’s briefly before dropping again. He thought he had seen a strange look in his brother’s eyes at his words but pushed ahead anyway. “After I started to figure all this stuff out – I had to know for sure. See with my own eyes, y’know what I mean?” Terry um-hmm’d in agreement, so Matt continued. “Anyway, I – um, _borrowed_ those binoculars of yours and staked out the roof over there.” He pointed out the window to the next building over.

“Then – two weeks ago Thursday – I saw you fly into one of your windows as Batman and using the binoculars I was able to watch when you took your mask off.” Matt braced himself expecting Terry to lose it when he found out his privacy had been invaded. Terry did start to cuss, but it was mild and nowhere near the anger level that Matt had expected.

Matt relaxed a bit and strained to listen to what his brother was muttering, “Damn, the old man was right. Again. Can he never be wrong? _Noo_ – of course not. He’s the original Batman and he’s infallible. I’m going to have to move to the damned manor – _slaggit_ – I’m still too young to molder…” It degenerated to gibberish after that, but Matt had heard enough that he was struggling to not laugh aloud.

All of a sudden Terry reached over to his coffee table and picked up his old flip phone. He punched in a number and said shortly, “Hey, it’s me. Listen Matt is here and he knows. No, I didn’t tell him. He pulled a Max – sorta – I’ll tell you all about it later okay? I was just calling you to tell you that I was going to open the link with Matt here so that you weren’t getting a surprise.” Terry abruptly shut the phone and Matt blinked. ‘Whoa, Ter you have some stones to hang up on old man Wayne like that,’ he thought, and then ‘Max?’

Terry walked over to where Matt had seen him nudge something when they came in and flip – something, Matt still couldn’t see. As soon as he did part of one wall in the living room slid back to reveal a large vid-screen with the red bat emblem spinning in its center and some other strange electronic gadgets strategically placed around the screen. Matt whistled low in awe, “Schway setup.”

Terry threw him a quick grin before facing the screen again. He said in an authoritative voice, “Cave.” Matt watched in amazement as the spinning red bat shrunk and an image of Bruce Wayne appeared on the screen. A very unhappy looking Bruce Wayne who was scowling fiercely enough at Matt to make him feel very weak in the knees suddenly. ‘Damn is that old man scary!’

The old man’s eyes narrowed for a bit and then when Matt didn’t outwardly react, he switched their glare over to Terry who didn’t even seem to notice it. “So, tell me.”

Terry just waved a hand carelessly, “I’ll explain later, but suffice it to say – you were right.”

“This is supposed to surprise me?” the old man said dryly and Matt stared as a small genuine smile flickered across the old lips. Who knew that the old guy had anything that even resembled a sense of humour? Terry was smiling back affectionately too, Matt saw. He hadn’t realized how deep the bond between the two men was before. In a way it left him feeling strangely humbled.

“Anyway old man, seeing as he knows I guess I don’t have to beg off patrol tonight after all. But I was thinking – rather than leaving him here all alone, I think that he could be kept out of trouble better if he were at the cave with you while I patrolled.”

“Me! Hang out at the batcave? Really?” Matt squeaked in excitement. Then he saw the look on Wayne’s face, and his excitement began to fade some. The old man didn’t seem to care for the idea but Terry coaxed,

“Come on Bruce, I promise to blindfold him on the way in and out and you can lock down the cave’s other entrances in the meantime. What do you say?”

“Fine. Fifteen minutes.” The old man snapped and the screen in front of the two brothers snapped back to the black with the spinning red bat symbol on it. Matt just stared at that spinning symbol, allowing it to half hypnotize him as he wondered at his good fortune. He was awed and stunned that he was going to be able to set foot in such a legendary place, even if he wasn’t going to be allowed to see where it was. He had his suspicions of course, but that was an investigation for another day.

“I’ve called the Batmobile already, ready to go?” Terry asked his brother.

Matt spun startled, and did a second double take when he saw his brother was already wearing ‘the suit’ minus the mask. “Cool.” He breathed.

Terry grinned and pulled the mask on in one smooth practiced movement. Then he reached over and handed his brother a black cloth hood. “Here, you’ll need this later but for now – fly with me?” Matt followed his brother eagerly to the open window.

“Count of three?” Terry asked and when Matt nodded, started to count. “One, two, three!”

All Matt could say as they flew down to the approaching Batmobile was, “Whoohooo!”

End  



End file.
